New Package Bees

by Ruhl Bee on 05/10/14

Don't stop feeding your package bees if you live in the Northwest. You should see a solid brood pattern on the center the combs of the installed package colonies by now, assuming you got your bees in the last couple of weeks. If you got them earlierr the brood should spread across several combs. If the brood has a scattered pattern, showing lots of empty cells, put the hive on your list for another inspection soon. It might need a new a new queen. The ideal brood is dense and only has a few empty cells showing.

By the way, when doing your hive inspection, once you see one comb dense with brood, you can reasonably assume the colony is doing well, and stop the inspection at that point. No need to rummage through all the combs unless you have good reason to.